Ad Astra Volume 15 Number 4 2003

ON THE COVER: NSS Photographer Joe Marino captures space shuttle Columbia in a time-exposed lift off in 1999.

Featured Articles:

• 14
  Burt Rutan’s Personal Space
  Aviation maverick Burt Rutan has his eye on the prize—the X Prize to be precise—and is building a means to capture it.
  By Rob Loughran
• 18
  Rocketcam
  Go along for the ride with Ecliptic Technologies innovative tools for keeping an eye on Space.
  By Rebecca Stowers
• 20
  A Woman of Space
  In an excerpt from the new book Women
  of Space: Cool Careers on the Final Frontier, meet a woman who dreams of building a Noah’s Ark for space.
  By Laura S. Woodmansee
• 24
  The Spaceships that Never Were
  Drawing board or desert flat – these next gen craft never quite got the green light.
  By Travis K. Kircher
• 32
  My Trip to Mars
  NSS photographer Jim Marino suits up, trains, and joins the 400,000-plus who have already made the journey to Mars.
  By Joe Marino
• 38
  The New Etiquette of Propulsion
  That disc-shaped thing in the sky? Maybe
  it’s one of ours. The future of propulsion technology is that exotic…
  By Meg Baker
• 41
  Honoring Heroes
  The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame welcomes its four newest inductees.